Jumanji One Half
by Skysaber
Summary: And people say there's nothing original left to do in Ranma fiction. Aren't they silly? I haven't even begun on my Ranma Power Rangers crossover. Plans for the Wedding Peach hybrid have just pushed it to the back seat, I guess.
1. Chapter 1

Jumanji One Half  
Chapter One

by Skysaber  
aka Jared Ornstead

And people say there's nothing original left to do in Ranma fiction. Aren't they silly? I haven't even begun on my Ranma/ Power Rangers crossover. Plans for the Wedding Peach hybrid have just pushed it to the back seat, I guess.

12345  
On an idyllic hill in Japan long ago...

"Whatcha doing, Ucchan?"

"Look at this, Ranchan. I found a game! Wanna play?"

"Sure. What's it called?"

"Dunno. can't pronounce it." The girl cracked open the game's wooden box, picking up two playing pieces carved from stone.

"I'll be the elephant!" The little boy eagerly cried, jumping to sit by his best friend.

12345  
Ten Years Later...

The old shed door creaked open. "So this is it, huh, Ranchan?"

"Yeah, Ucchan, this is where pops stashed the cart." Two teenagers stepped into the darkened and abandoned farm shed, dust flying as they made entrance onto the trash-strewn floor of the building, ending the tomb-like silence it had known for countless years.

The girl of the two, long brown hair flowing down her shapely back in a ponytail, her blue okanomiyaki seller's shirt setting off her complexion nicely, stepped over to a tarp covered lump, lifting the corner of it before exclaiming in surprise and sweeping the cover off.

"Gah! Ucchan!" The boy coughed as a decade's worth of dust filled the air, choking his breathing off for a few moments. He finally settled to find his fiancee beaming as she looked over the relic thus reclaimed.

"It's still got all the things you took with it: the griddle, gas, spatulas, bowls and canisters..." The cute girl wrinkled her nose at the state of it. "Somebody left it an awful mess, but the tools are all here. Take me a week to clean all of it, though."

"Yeah, sorry about that." Ranma apologized, rubbing the back of his neck.

"And here's the broken wheel, just like you said." Ukyo was leaning down to look at the offending break that had caused the abandonment. She sparkled. "Hey! This isn't so bad! This is just a couple of spokes. I fixed worse than this when I was five years old. Couple of spare branches and a few hours whittling and a little dab of paint, and I'll be wheeling it out of here almost like new! You may even have left the paint I used in here."

She opened one of the base panels of the portable restaurateur's cart, poking herself in to the tiny opening so she could look around and see if the object she was after remained. "Aha! Here it is! You guys could have fixed this up yourselves, if you'd wanted. Why leave the whole thing behind? It's more effort dumping it like this than putting the wheel back on."

Ranma shrugged. "Pops wasn't interested in fixin nuthin. He and I didn't know how to run the cart, either. It was just a store fulla food on wheels. Sorry."

Ukyo stood up, paint in hand. "Hey, no problem, sugar. You were supposed to get a cook with this, remember?"

Her fiance flushed with embarrassment and didn't say anything. He'd destroyed Ukyo's life in that little thing she was now joking about. In that betrayal he'd been an unwitting party, but the guilt was still partly there. That she'd forgiven him was no less amazing than anything else that had happened during his event-filled life.

Ukyo was back down in the compartment seeking for a brush when her exclamation of surprise cut into Ranma's guilt trip. She emerged from the panel holding an old wooden box, flat, with carvings on top. She blew away the dust, smiling in reminiscence. "Ranchan, remember this?"

Her boyfriend moved close by, looking over her shoulder onto the carved box top. A smile split his face. "Hey, yah. I do!" He reached in as she cracked open the center-split lid, pulling out a carved stone playing piece and turning the thing over in his hand. Suddenly his eyes found his fiancee's face with unconcealed delight. "Do yah think that stuff with the alligator was mixed up with this?"

"Could be." The maiden shrugged, moving to put the game box safely away to the side while she fixed her beloved family cart. "Didn't believe it at the time, but we've both seen stranger things since then. Getting attacked by a giant alligator at six just kind of blends in."

"Yeah, only the weird part is I think that alligator is still around. Kodachi may have adopted it." Ranma tossed the piece back onto the box, where it rolled til it was standing fixed in the starting position in the built in game board, standing at the start, near the two other pieces that had not moved in ten years.

"Nihau, Ranma!" A bubbly, bouncy amazon chef burst into the shed from the open door. "Wife bring husband too too delicious ramen." The purple-haired fiancee produced from the takeout box two bowls of her cafe's finest, then paused on seeing the obvious reverence her rival fiancee was treating the cart by which she worked. "What you do?"

Ukyo stood up from removing the broken wheel, shooting a confident smile to her rival. "This cart here is my dowry. Ranchan and I are just fixing it up to working condition."

"You do business from small wagon?" The bouncy amazon asked, coming closer. She recognized a kitchen when she saw one.

"Yup. Worked it all my life up until Genma took it." Ukyo shot the amazon a conniving look. "When that fat old bastard stole this he ruined my honor as a woman."

Shampoo shot her rival a concerned look, quickly turning into a calculating one. "You no have honor as woman, how you marry Ranma?"

"Well, that's the only thing that will restore my feminine dignity." Ukyo answered tightly.

"Hmph." The purple tressed amazon shrugged, dismissing the matter. Instantly the bubbly charm was back directed at Ranma, along with a bowl of beef ramen. "Ranma please to taste lovely food and take Shampoo to date?"

"Not right now..." The cornered boy temporized, backing away like he would out of a trap. In his hesitance he knocked over the wooden game, sending the carved box to slide off the perch it had been set on to bounce once, turning over on the floor and spilling out a pair of old, bone dice.

"Go ahead and eat, Ranchan." Ukyo answered from inside the cart. "I won't be cooking on this thing today."

Shampoo shot her rival a look of surprise at such an easy victory, then gladly helped her would-be husband to a bowl. As he was eating, she picked up the dice, checking them over to see if they were anything interesting before negligently tossing them back in the box and returning her attention to her lawful husband.

The trick was in getting him to recognize that law.

Unseen in the box, the dice rolled up a two and a five, totaling seven. The feline piece that Ranma had added to the game moved of its own accord the required spaces, and hazy green light, like glowing mist, filled the crystal disk in the center of the game board, forming words unnoticed by the trio.

When ape-men bearing stone axes broke into the shed moments later screaming and hopping and chopping, the three martial artists were so used to this type of thing on a regular basis they thought nothing of it at the time.

But the lucky axe hit that destroyed Ukyo's cart ruined her whole month.

12345  
Ten Months Later...

Ranma stared at the bottle of sake in his hands. It might as well have been labeled "One, Transformation Into Genma Saotome Potion." Yet for all that, he was almost tempted.

Disgusted, he threw it away to shatter on the dojo's wall, glass falling down to leave a mess that would render the building unusable until it was cleaned up. But for that, it stood in good company, many of the fallen glass shards mixing with broken bits of concrete from Akane's uncleaned mess.

The failed wedding had ruined everything it touched: his mom's house, his chance for a cure, his last shreds of what could have been love for Akane or respect for Nabiki... his life. Yet he was still trapped and he knew it.

No, the martial artist was feeling good and miserable. It was an utterly and perfectly awful day.

12345  
Ten Days Later...

"Whatcha doing Ucchan?" Ranma decided to finally forgive his best friend for her antics at the destroyed wedding. Things were bad enough without her participation that not much she did made it any worse. Nabiki bore more blame than she, and Nabiki wasn't his oldest, best friend.

Tired and haggard, Ukyo looked up from the game she'd been toying with, somehow sensing his forgiveness and relieved by it. "Just thinking about old times, Ranchan." She replied, listless and without energy, worn out emotionally by the recent events.

Not knowing what else to do, the boy slid into a seat beside her. Trying to change the subject to something he could handle. "So who's turn is it?" He asked with a strained smile.

The gesture was returned gladly. She handed him a pair of dice. "Yours, Ranchan. Roll something that will make it all better, okay?"

"You really think the game is magic?" The worn out teenage martial artist asked, accepting the dice.

"Could be. I was just making talk, sugar."

Two bone dice clattered to a stop in the box, coming up two fours, for eight. The elephant piece moved itself upon the game board, and when it stopped glowing green mist formed words in the board's central disk. They read:

"Jungle treasures, ancient gold  
Shall reward your venture bold."

Both teens stared with bug-eyes around to see Ukyo's shop was hung with every kind of jewelry and trinket. Gold treasures were piled deep on tables, festooned every wall, and dangled from hooks and fixtures on the ceiling. Gems and jewels glittered in mounds. Skulls bearing crowns or with ancient swords clutched between their teeth lay lopsided on top of beds of pearls heaping between mugs of engraved silver laden with their own cargoes of gems and coin, chests filled to capacity and overflowing with more of the same and stacks of jungle ivory. Coins spilled out over the floor in drifts like so many sand dunes on a beach, cresting the tops of her tables and heaping up in all of the corners.

Ukyo lunged for the door and shot the bolts home, a lightning grab brought her shop curtain in a window and bolted that in the same movement, closing the business.

Predictably, two seconds later, a knock sounded at the entrance and Nabiki's voice came floating in. "Ukyo, let me in. We've got to talk business."

"Not right now!" The ponytailed chef tried hard to fight the panic in her tones. "Come back later... much later, like next week!"

"Ukyo..." came Nabiki's reproving voice wafting through the door. "There are expenses and things. You owe damages for what you did, you know..."

Just as Ukyo was tempted to grab a handful of gold chains and thrust it through a crack in the door, telling her to buzz off and count it all paid for, Ranma came snarling to his feet.

"NOT TO YOU!!" He roared at the person just past the closed portal, stalking toward it as his anger finally grounded into a target. Nabiki wasn't his best friend or bound to him by laws she had no way out of. She was just a predator making money off of him and those who were caught up in this, increasing the suffering of everyone involved, and doing so for her own profit and amusement.

To his astonishment, his rage crystallized toward Nabiki as one of the very few who had no personal stake in this, but was actively making the situation worse for all involved.

Without missing a beat, he growled, "Whatever Ucchan did is between her family and mine! She owes NOTHING to you!!! And if I find you've been collecting debts in my name again, I'll..."

"You'll what, Saotome?" Nabiki's voice was vaguely amused.

"I'll kill you." He whispered, surprised to hear the words himself.

Silence came from the other side of the door as Nabiki's hair frizzed out and she stalked woodenly home, canceling in her mind the round of visits she'd planned to make, hauling in money from all of Ranma's rivals and fiancees over the destruction at the wedding. At least rescheduling them til she could learn if the pig-tailed martial artist had really meant it.

What frightened and shocked her most was it sounded like he had, and was only just now admitting to himself that he was honestly prepared to do it.

Whatever. It merited more speculation and further investigation. While she didn't think he meant it, didn't want to admit she feared it, and felt he could be easily diverted aside, there was something in his tone that made her wonder if he wasn't serious.

Deadly serious.

She'd have to make his life miserable for this scare, of course.

A tiny inward part of her, tucked away in a distant corner where she was hardly aware of it, was glad that Ukyo's restaurant had been the first stop on her list, as she walked away.

Ukyo was panting as Nabiki left. If she'd seen what was inside, nothing could have stopped her from doing every dirty deed she could to get it all. That Tendo girl was ruthless, and not likely to stop once she got started. Ukyo wanted to keep her restaurant, not to mention her life, out of that mercenary's hands.

The chef turned wide eyes on her almost-husband, communicating that fear, then taking in the whole panoply of glittering objects filling the room almost to capacity. "Ranchan, still think that game's not magic?"

Now coming off his surprise over his own words, he gazed around with bug-eyes. "Ucchan, my pops is gunna never let me rest if he sees this. I should just give it to him."

The chef scowled. "And what would that help? Ranchan, money is power. You are a limp dishrag in Nabiki's hands most of the time. Why? Because she knows how to use that kind of power and you don't. But think for a second, what would your dad do to you if he had the kind of wealth the Kunos did? Huh? He's made your life miserable just as he is. What if he had the power to do his stupid tricks on the kind of scale they do?"

Ranma gulped. "I've got to hide it... bury it somewhere..."

Ukyo fingered a necklace hanging past her face. There was so much of it... "Sorry honey, but how are you going to get it out of town to a place where you could bury it? An empty lot in town is just waiting for new construction."

"Your basement?" He shot her a look hungry for support.

"Sure, for a little while." She shrugged. "But I've got to store food somewhere, Ranchan. I do run a restaurant, you know. Besides, with all the spies and wall-smashers around here, wherever we put it won't stay hidden for long. You'd need Mousse's Hidden Weapons Techniques to hide it for real."

She looked around, frowning. "It's too bad, too." She lifted a filigreed necklace with a jewel the size of an eye, trying it on against her throat and posing. "Do you like it?"

"Yah, real cute." A confident gaze began to settle in upon Ranma's features, as he grasped a handful of jewels, letting them tinkle through his fingers, allowing himself to be distracted from his unwelcome anger by the change in topic. "So I need Mousse's techniques, huh?"

He was back to sporting a cocky grin. "Then I'll get 'em!"

12345

"Yes, son-in-law, what is it?" Cologne looked up from her cooking.

Ranma settled into a relaxed yet ready stance in combat range of her. "Hey, Old Ghoul, I need ya ta teach me Hidden Weapons Style."

"Oh?" Grey eyebrows lifted, but the crone continued to stir. "I could do that, son-in-law, but age weighs so heavily on my bones, you see..." she lied, and they both knew it to be a bargaining technique.

"So what do I gotta do?" He asked, scowling.

"It's very simple son-in-law, I wouldn't be asking for anything very difficult. I just want you to stay here for a few days, helping out. Now is that too much to ask?"

Ranma swallowed, suspecting a trap. "Uh, I guess not."

12345

The trap was that he was staying in Shampoo's room.

That was fine, Ukyo joined them on another mat, her restaurant being mysteriously closed this week. Both fathers pressured Akane to join them, too, but the tomboy was too angry and upset and outright refused.

That was fine.

Cologne did her best to make Ukyo miserable, loading her with tasks, until the rival chef sat down to bargaining for pay over these waitress duties and things settled down more or less reasonably, both sides toeing a fragile truce line.

She wasn't getting paid, but she was getting trained, and Ukyo had to admit to herself that her techniques were not the strongest in Nerima. Cologne taught her some pressure points for use against Happosai, or any other attacker that she could get to stand still (fondling her breasts or otherwise).

Besides, previous to moving temporarily into the Cat Cafe, Ukyo had prevailed upon her Ranchan to run off on a short distraction mission, getting half the ward to chase him while she slipped out of town another way. Getting away clean, she'd passed over to the far side of Tokyo and visited a precious metals dealer and collector of antiquities.

Cashing in just one of those coins had made her rich beyond her humble dreams off of that one coin alone, not even showing the man any of the jewels or jewelry. Unlike before, when she had to weigh closing times carefully, now she could take off all of the time she wanted (and had taken the precaution of acquiring a good stack of yen notes for her Ranchan to hide in his sleeves when he got mastery of Mousse's techniques).

Speaking of Ranma, he was run through a wringer by the training. Cologne put him through a grueling regimen of hauling loads of cement bigger than most small trucks, building walls for the Cat Cafe's extension, cutting timber with his hands and hauling the logs across rooftops from the forests where he'd cut it so they could add to the construction. Then there was waitressing at top speed amid huge crowds who'd learned that a cute redhead was back to serving at the cafe. And after all that there was hours of non-stop work laboring to learn the techniques as Cologne taught him from her scrolls.

As predicted, Ranma was so exhausted that he lay there at night too weak to struggle as Shampoo gently ministered, or lay naked along his side.

Ukyo was too weak to fight on his behalf, too. So she countered as best she could by just going along, stripping down and laying opposite Shampoo on Ranchan's other side. There were some glares, but Cologne's instructions had been 'no fighting' so they lay that way more or less peaceably. Fortunately, the rival fiancees didn't care to jump his bones with the other there and watching, just as Ukyo'd hoped.

But a nervously sweating Ranma learned quite well that his ol' buddy Ucchan was a girl. Not only that, but being accustomed as he was to affection from one source leading to violence from another, this situation actually served to undo some of that conditioning. It even lasted long enough for the traumatized martial artist to gradually grow comfortable with it; and both girls practically sprang out of their skins with joy as he began to return some of their cuddles and caresses, even if it was all just mild stuff so far.

Just as Cologne had hoped, the stay turned out to be a pivotal point in Ranma's marriage to Shampoo as for the first time he began to accept and even return some of her affections openly. Even if it was all small ones for now, that was still a great victory.

Of course, the complication was that he also was doing so with Ukyo.

However, for the moment, the cuddly amazon was too happy to care. She even cried with joy about getting some attention in return from her Airen. Then Ukyo had to step in and stop his panic attack about tears always being bad, and explain that girls can cry when they are just really happy.

She did it for selfish reasons, knowing that she'd be that happy soon if he kept this up with her, and not wanting him to freak out as she succumbed to her joy, but Shampoo viewed that bit of help as a peace offering and glomped her with thanks. Ukyo discovered she was too happy herself to correct her misconception, and found to her surprise the amazon gave a hint that the two could legally share the boy in their tribe, and began to treat her as friends, or rather, with less hostility and more attention focused on her cuddling husband than fighting her rival.

Ukyo found she had much to think on, but then her Ranchan mastered those techniques.

12345

"That's the last of it." Ukyo handed over a basket of deep red stones hanging with chains of glittering gold and silver.

Struggling, Ranma fit the basket into his new over-robe's sleeve, sweating at the strain of it all. "Aw, man, it's gunna be a week before I'm used to the weight." He groused, thinking of how this much weight was going to ground many of his aerial techniques.

Ukyo cocked her head at him, lips pursed and thinking. "I'll go repack my overnight bag."

"Huh?"

His cute fiancee shrugged, tossing hair and shoulders pertly. "Hey, there's no way Mousse is strong enough to carry all that stuff he does under his robes. There's got to be more to the techniques that Cologne hasn't taught you yet."

Her martial artist fiance groaned.

12345

"What is box?" Shampoo asked, as the two rejoined her in her room in the Cat Cafe.

Ukyo lay the wooden game down along with her stuff. "It's a game Ranma and I were playing when we were small." She answered. "We wanted to ask your grandmother about it."

"Sorry. I've never seen it before." Cologne said when they asked, then began reading the box. "Hmm, Jumanji: A game for those who seek to find a way to leave their world behind. You roll the dice to move your token, doubles gets another turn. The first person to reach the end wins. And then on the facing side, it warns: Adventurers Beware. Do not begin unless you intend to finish. The exciting consequences of the game will vanish only when a player has reached Jumanji and called out its name. Hmm, how long ago did you say that you started this game?"

"Almost eleven years ago, now." Ukyo measured the crone's reaction.

"I'd ask if you'd noticed anything unusual in that time, but this is son-in-law's life we are all discussing. So I'd presume it would have to be quite extraordinary for anything to stand out. Why don't you show me a turn?"

For demonstration they sat down to the board again. Ranma handed Ukyo the dice, but she gave them back. "No, Ranchan, you rolled doubles last time. Doubles get another turn according to the box lid."

Ranma rolled the dice again, prompting an attack by a wild boars and resulting in a pork ramen special at the cafe. Cologne promised to research it. Then she put them both on a strict training regimen that had their eyeballs practically bursting.

Later that night, too tired to do anything about it, Ukyo watched as Shampoo took Ranma all to herself, undressing him preparatory to you could guess what. Not even enough voice left to complain, the ponytailed chef looked at the box lying to her left. An idea came.

It took practically all she had left, but she rolled onto her side to open the lid and grab the dice. Dropping them, she read:

"Need a hand? Why you just wait.  
We'll help you out. We each have eight."

The topic made her skin crawl, but looking around she did see those fears were justified. There were a dozen spiders the size of large cats emerging into the room, some lowering themselves on threads from the ceiling, others coming out from under the bed or closet.

Ukyo was too tired to fight, and Shampoo too preoccupied with overcoming Ranma's feeble resistance to her claiming his boxers to notice them as yet. Still, tired as she was, the okanomiyaki chef noticed the spiders weren't doing anything but hanging around.

Recalling the words said 'help', she whispered. "Can you get that hussy off my Ranchan?"

Instantly the spiders sprang to do her bidding. They jumped and pounced on the amazon, caught her unawares, and in a flurry of web-spinning had her cocooned to the ceiling in a tense half-second. She was so surprised by the attack the amazon didn't even have time to cry out.

Ukyo was laying there gazing at this in awe. "Uh, don't eat her, kay? And could you get us some clothes?" Her own had been ruined by a blind-side attack by Mousse early that day and the stitches had been coming apart under training since then.

The spiders went into motion, but without adrenaline to keep her awake, neither Ukyo nor Ranma stayed conscious for it, drifting off to inevitable and well-earned sleep.

12345

"Ranma! Prepare to DIE!!"

Ukyo looked up to see Ryoga coming straight down at her Ranma-honey, eyes afire with hate. OH, great. She thought. Someone's been telling him stories to get him mad again.

They'd just barely woken up that morning to find the room a veritable department store full of garments, undergarments, hats, lingerie, gloves, anything and everything that could be spun out of silk and called 'clothes'.

She was frankly embarrassed to death to look at some of them. But the off the shoulder gown she wore just now was among the more stunning pieces. Ranchan had practically burst trying to fit it all into his brand new Hidden Weapons techniques so that Cologne wouldn't see it and wonder, and in his haste hadn't noticed that a good third of those outfits had been sized specifically for Shampoo.

But it got them out of uncomfortable explanations, at least once she'd used a thrown spatula to cut Shampoo down. The girl was so confused she didn't recall what'd happened, and probably assumed Ukyo'd blindsided her.

Well, by proxy...

Surprising herself, Ukyo had even apologized for doing so.

Ryoga's daytime attack burst a water main buried under the street. Both male martial artists, her Ranma and his enemy, were soaked, activating their Jusenkyo curses. The tiny black pig that was Ryoga's cursed form began biting the girl that was Ranma's.

Ukyo rolled her eyes and dejectedly sighed, groaning aloud a common complaint. "I wish someone would do something so that pig wouldn't bother my fiance anymore."

Everyone's eyes bugged out when a swarm of spiders as big in body as the little black pig, swarmed over the fight and took the porcine assailant away.

Ranma-chan's eyes met Ukyo's, both bulging about the size of golf-balls.

They ran back to the Cat Cafe, hauling open the game. Ranma grabbed the dice and rattled them, hoping for another good deed from the board, but nothing happened when he rolled. Or rather, nothing good. He got struck by a lightning bolt that came in the window and crispy fried him and his playing piece didn't move. The words said that strike was a penalty for going out of turn.

"There's a third piece, Ranchan." Ukyo observed after a moment of wondering.

"Who..? Shampoo!"

"So THAT'S where those carnivorous apes came from! Hey, they ruined my cart! I could've restored some honor with my family if I'd reclaimed that!" The okanomiyaki chef got fiery in indignation.

"She didn't choose to roll axe-weilding apes, Ucchan. Any more than you or I choose what we roll." The pigtailed boy shook off his recent blasting and bounded back to a sitting position, staring hard at his friend, then at the game board.

His cute fiancee cocked a grin. "So where is she? It's her turn next."

12345

"Shampoo?" Cologne asked when pressed. "So glad to see your taking an interest at last in your bride's whereabouts, son-in-law. She's taking an order to the Tendo's place. They had some type of tragedy occur to one of their pets, I understand."

The pair of teenagers shared a troubled look before they dashed off.

They got there to discover Akane in tears, next to a little coffin draped with flowers and pictures of herself holding P-chan. Ukyo cringed when she learned they'd found the little pig's bones all wrapped up in webbing early that afternoon.

But, oh well.

Shampoo was stuck serving, so Ranma naturally interrupted long enough to beg her to roll the dice so he could get his turn again. As with all things he'd asked of her (except to leave him alone), Shampoo did it without hesitation and without question, glad just to make him happy.

When she rolled her piece moved on its own, as before, and he read.

"Don't be fooled, that isn't thunder.  
Staying put would be a blunder."

The house began to shake, and the ground began to quake. Ukyo took the words of the warning to heart and got out of there directly, grabbing the game board and leaping away. Shampoo and the others stood curious while the sounds and shaking increased. Then the back walls of the Tendo compound burst out in the face of a huge wild animal stampede consisting chiefly of elephants and rhinos, with some zebras and antelopes mixed in for flavor. Apes swung by and hippos cruised around the flanks of giraffes and crocodiles.

Crashing elephants destroyed the foundations and supporting walls of the Tendo home, causing it to come crashing down. The herd stampeded over the dojo, crushing it beneath a flurry of rampaging hooves. Instantly as it started Shampoo grabbed her bicycle and leapt out of the way. Ranma snatched the nearest person, which was Kasumi, met Nabiki's gaze of startled terror and returned a smile - seeing her terror turn to despair as she read the message in those eyes that he would not help her, that this was repayment for the debt SHE owed HIM. Then he leapt away.

In seconds the entire compound was gone, smashed into unrecognizable fragments.

Some of those fragments were red bones, others were muddy wood. A koi flapped somewhere in the destruction, miraculously spared the pounding feet of animals til a pelican swept down and snatched it up in its beak.

Kasumi fell, weeping, to her knees.

Realizing at once that he'd just witnessed the death of a clan (oh, and his pops, too), Ranma kicked the offending box that had started it all. It fell, flapped open, and the dice rolled out to stop at his feet. He kicked at them with less enthusiasm as he growled, and they bounced away, coming to a stop near the ruins, showing up two sixes.

"Blasted Jumanji!"

Which, the last roll had just taken his game token to the center, and saying the game's name was the final act of play. The whole world turned blurry, confusing the martial artists as it spun and twisted and suddenly...

12345

...restored all to the moment play started.

Chibi-Ranma and six-year-old Ukyo were sitting on the grass of an idyllic hill of Japan. On the grass before them lay the board, all three pieces now lay on their sides, inert. Over the crest of the hill both children could hear their fathers talking. As they listened, too stunned to move, the engagement deal was settled.

"Ranchan?" Ukyo hesitantly offered him an opening.

"Ucchan.. that game, the Tendos... Ryoga..." Chibi-Ranma shuddered. At last the bitter taste of revenge soured his throat as he recalled Nabiki's last look of desperate despair. Too late he resolved never again to give in to anger.

Look where it got Ryoga.

"Ranchan..." Chibi-Ukyo scooted over, putting an arm around his shoulders. "It didn't happen! Look, we're kids again. You recall what the game said? You finish a game and it all goes back to the ways things were before? Well, this is when we started playing. Nobody died. That's all in the future, and it doesn't have to be that way next time!"

Stiffening, Ranma jumped back over the hill to accost his father, who had died, and see if it was all really true. That this was the past and none of those ten years and some odd days had happened.

A bit too clever for that, Ukyo instead leaned over, replaced one piece in storage and put two others back in play, her gazelle and Ranchan's elephant. She rolled the dice just as African drums began to roll, and her playing piece began to move on it's own to cover the dice-determined number of squares.

12345

Author's Notes:

Well, uploading as an html document is tons better, thanks to Howard Russell for that suggestion.

I have started a page on Ficwad dot com, and aside from a bit of chapter silliness you wonderful people had already warned me about, that is going fairly well. Seeing as how I don't trust the managment here at fanfiction dot net in the slightest, that's probably going to be where I try and achieve a complete archive. But no promises, I might get a better offer. And it is doubtful that I'll abandon this place completely, at least not for a while or unless they give me further reason to do so.

Most of you had asked for links to whatever new page I'd established. I'd love to give those, but this place automatically strips them out. I wonder why? It couldn't possibly be they don't like competition. Nah! That could never be it.

Anyway, spelled out here for you because it can't be in linkable or copy/paste format, here it is: Ficwad dot com, user ID 18114, or just do a search there for Skysaber.


	2. Chapter 2

Jumanji One Half  
Chapter Two

by Skysaber  
aka Jared Ornstead

OoOoO

The dice showed a pair of twos, totaling four, and after Ukyo's playing piece had moved the center disk swam with hazy green words.

"Every month at the quarter moon  
There'll be a monsoon in your lagoon."

Thunder cracked and rain began to fall heavily seconds after the words appeared.

"Aaaaurggghh!! Ucchan! Why'd ya start another game!?!?" The black-haired boy almost pulled his hair out as he bounded back over the hill as the storm broke, drenching them with rain and whipping that whole area with winds that nearly blew their surprised fathers away.

Chibi-Ukyo answered. "Ranchan, think a minute. Your curse is cured! You don't turn into a girl anymore! That dragon-whisker thingy wasn't using up your hair! You don't have any of those problems!"

Those thoughts sobered chibi-Ranma somewhat, and he dropped his hands. "Yah, but..." He gestured helplessly at the game. "I don't WANT 'em again!"

Chibi-Ukyo rolled her eyes and sighed, resisting the urge to hit him with a giant spatula she couldn't carry as a kid anyway. "So think for a minute! Ranchan, you've got ten more years of training than your dad thinks you do. You could go home and see your mom. You could do anything!"

"But why..?" All chibi-Ranma could do was point in confusion at the game again, a trail of water flowing from his finger almost lost in the rain, before the rivulet of droplets got blown away by the wind.

Ukyo deliciously shrugged, setting her much-shorter hair bouncing. "Oh, well, it occurred to me that your dad's given you so many problems in your life that another chance to sort them out without it being permanent or anything could be useful. Don't you think? I mean, you and I could go train for another ten years and come right back to this moment!"

"Why would we want to?" Chibi-Ranma scratched his head through sopping wet hair.

"What if you pick up another curse again?" She asked him. "What if your dad sells you, or you run afoul of the yakuza, or Nabiki gets you in an honor agreement to do some horrible thing for her? Think about it, Ranchan. Now you know better than to ever go near Jusenkyo. What other problems out there are we going to learn how to avoid?"

She saw the light bulb go off above her fiance's head in spite of a downpour of rain so bad it almost came in a solid sheet, plastering their hair to their heads.

"And the game has tons of monsters to fight." She added as frosting on the cake. She took out Shampoo's piece, a lion, and threw it back on the game board, where it automatically slid toward the Start position. "We'll even let Shampoo play, only since she's not here I'll just have to roll the dice for her. Oh dear, so many more monsters to fight." The cute chibi-chef grinned roguishly, the wind still whipping droplets from her sopping wet hair.

Instantly she had a convert.

But the first time chibi-Ranma picked up the dice again, before anything else happened, green words swam to the surface of the crystal before he'd even rolled. Curious, both kids bent over to see a phrase.

"Doubles on win, reward is doubled  
State your wish and be not troubled.  
Prizes you get from winning a game  
stay in effect and forever remain."

Chibi-Ranma scratched his head. "Gosh, I dunno what I want. I ain't cursed, an I can go see my mom whenever I want. Can you think of somethin, Ucchan?"

"Sure, Ranchan. I'd like to learn martial arts and physical things as easily as you do, but that's for me, that's not..." The chibi-chef trailed off as she looked at new words forming in the disk.

"A wish to have an agile mind  
is among the best to find.

Using the wish to help a friend  
will always result in a happier end.

A doubled reward, two friends were aided  
Partners forever and never abated."

The two blinked down at the crystal disk as the words faded and the wind whipped a tree past their position. It was already starting to flood in the lower areas.

"Who else do you think got it, Ranchan?"

"Dunno, but I'm sure we'll find out." He picked up the dice again, but got restrained by her hand.

"Hang on, Ranchan. I got doubles for my first roll. I'd hate to see you get struck by lightning again for going out of turn."

"Ukyo!" "Ranma!" Two fathers were heard calling out through the rain.

Gulping, Ranma closed the board game and shoved it into his sleeve.

Later, as the storm subsided, they joined each other up in the lofty top branches of a tree, where Genma couldn't climb near to get them or overhear their conversation as his great weight would break off any supports. The game sat balanced on a branch between them.

"I think we should take this with us. And don't forget me this time!" Ukyo announced, hands pressed on little hips.

Ranma-chibi was shaking his little head.

Tears welled up in little Ukyo's eyes. "You... don't want me, Ranchan?"

The little boy was startled, then hastily explained. "Nah, it ain't that. I just don wanna go with my dad. He's gunna start trainin me in the Cat Fist in jus a couple a days after we leave here an..." the boy shuddered. "I still don like cats. An I don wanna think how much worst it'll be if he gets me in that pit again."

"Wow." Chibi-Ukyo blinked girlishly, which was fine, she was a girl. "I guess I hadn't thought about that. He makes a lousy parent."

"Wild animals coulda raised me better." Chibi-Ranma agreed.

"So how are we going to learn your Art?"

"Don't need him. I know everything the old bastard can teach, just about." Little boy Ranma boasted, confidently crossing his arms.

"I don't." The little girl objected in a small voice.

Ranma blinked owlishly at her for a moment, new ideas having to take a moment to penetrate. She wanted to learn his style? He guessed it sorta made sense after all her dad wanted her ta travel with him and such. A minute later he said. "Yah, but I can teach yah! Better'n him anyway."

Chibi-Ukyo gave him a firm yet petite nod. "Okay, and I can show you what I did to learn my weapons better. AND we'll need you to be a good cook."

"Do I gotta?"

"Running a cart is alot less work with two, Ranchan. How else were you planning to eat?"

Steal. Or that was how his father had always done it. But somehow that option didn't appeal as much anymore. Come to think of it, that bit about weapons being a weakness was Genma's idea, too. He'd have to think about that later, it was probably garbage too.

Right now he said. "Okay, I'll cook. It'll be embarrassing ta do it as a boy, though."

"Ranchan, my dad cooks. He's a guy. No one laughs at him."

Chibi-Ranma's moment of silent contemplation as he processed that thought was broken by a jarring cry of "BOY!!" shouted by his dad below, who shook the tree to get them down, tumbling both off their precarious perch. With a start Ukyo recognized that their fathers had made the engagement earlier, that meant today was the day Genma Saotome wanted to skip off and separate her from Ranma! After the agreement had been made he hadn't stuck around an extra minute he didn't have to, for fear of someone making him live up to his commitment. In fact, the Saotomes were already overdue for departure, at least as far as when they'd chosen to leave last time.

Praying for a distraction, Chibi-Ukyo made a grab for the dice and rolled, even as they fell from the height of the tree. Amazingly, the bone cubes clattered into the box, coming to a stop in the box despite their falling, although she couldn't see the numbers.

Just as they hit, bouncing off the grass and absorbing the shock as practiced martial artists, a feathered spear hit the trunk just above Genma's head. He looked, startled to find a group of African natives in war dress and paint standing in a ring around them with bones through their noses and spears raised to kill. More tribesmen lurked deeper in the forest.

Ukyo glanced down at the words in the crystal.

"They really love their kindreds' taste.  
Better run, no time to waste."

The little girl grabbed up the game, urged her boyfriend to follow, and the pair of them took off running as fast as their little legs could carry them. Ukyo tossed the game box on top of her dad's cart and the three of them, Chibi-Ranma, Chibi-Ukyo, and her dad, rushed off pushing the cart while behind them Genma frantically fought off a tribe of cannibals.

When they were about an hour away, the trio stopped. Panting, Chibi-Ukyo asked. "Think he'll be alright?"

Chibi-Ranma nodded. "Yah, no tribe of Africans is gunna do him in. Africa ain't got no martial arts ta speak of."

Ukyo's father chose that moment to have the heart attack he'd been dreading, and the master of Kuonji School of Martial Arts Okanomiyaki perished. The two kids buried him, Chibi-Ukyo weeping. Standing by the newly dug grave, Chibi-Ranma tried to comfort her. "Hey, Ucchan! It's alright! All we gotta do is finish the game an he'll be alright!"

"No, Ranchan." Chibi-Ukyo wiped repeatedly at her unceasing tears. "He's had this heart problem all my life. Going back won't make him better. I'll just lose him again."

"Couldn't a doctor or somethin..." Chibi-Ranma felt helpless.

"Couldn't afford one." Red-eyed Ukyo mumbled through her tears.

Chibi-Ranma spent a moment in thought, wanting to comfort his friend. "I'll bet Cologne coulda done sumpthin."

"But she isn't here. No way to get her here, Ranchan." Little Ukyo continued bawling.

A bright little light bulb went off over little Ranma's head. "Maybe not." He admitted. "But we could learn how to be doctors! Then, when we came back, we could help your dad!"

Chibi-Ukyo looked up, caught by the excitement in her fiance's voice, and stopping her trail of tears somewhat. "It'll take a long time, Ranchan. We'd have to grow up before we could even attend medical school."

"Nah!" Her young friend boasted proudly, posing with hands on hips. "I'll bet we could do it faster than that! We just learn a medical martial art!"

"Like Doctor Tofu's" She asked, puzzled somewhat by this approach.

"Maybe. The Old Ghoul's was better. She knew a branch of Amazon healing they hadn't taught Shampoo yet. But I don wanna go back there yet. I ain't ready to." Actually what he feared was another marriage contest that he didn't know how to avoid.

"Got it!" Chibi-Ranma yelled, slapping his fist into his palm. "My ol' man's master got in that amazons' village an out again with everything he wanted. I bet if we got those techniques of his we could get those scrolls Cologne learned her stuff from!"

"But... isn't he locked in a cave right now?" Chibi-Ukyo asked, tears slowly forgotten. "Do you know what that cave is?"

Ranma sagged, six-year-old shoulders drooping. "Nah, I don't... never told me where." He groaned, then he became erect and excited again. "But I know where his friend is!"

"What friend?" Ukyo asked, feeling much better now they had a course of action.

"Master whatshisname. The guy Soun and my pops were runnin off ta train with, thinkin he could help them beat ol Happy." Chibi-Ranma boasted, remembering. "He's some kind a Chinese ninja. Only he thought the dads were worthless so he didn't teach 'em any real bits a his art, only tricks. But we're better martial artists than Soun an my pops! He'd teach us! And if he's like ol' Happy with his perversion (and he is), then he's gotta be like him for his appetite, too! We'll bribe him with food ta teach us!"

Chibi-Ukyo wiped the last tear from her eye, forgetting her grief in this plan. "I guess it could work."

"C'mon!" Chibi-Ranma grabbed one half of the handles, hauling the okanomiyaki cart away alongside his buddy. In his haste he pulled too fast and the game box slid off of the top of their cart, falling down on its side and opening. Seeing it tumbling toward a storm drain still rushing with flood waters, the diminutive martial artist dropped the handles on the cart and made a lightning dash, picking up the game board in mid roll and snatching up the dice inches before they got claimed by floodwaters, leaping back away again to somersault in mid air and land on his feet back beside the cart.

"Ha! No sweat." Chibi-Ranma gave a cocky grin and tossed the dice back into the game box before slamming the lid.

Chibi-Ukyo returned his grin before they both heard the roll of African drums. They set down the wooden game again just in time to see Ranma's elephant finish its move. The dice read two ones, snake eyes, and green words again swam to the surface of the crystal in the center of the board.

"Shanghaied by the Foreign Legion  
Say goodbye, you've left the region."

The pair of kids looked around to find that their previous surroundings were gone, replaced by the belly of an old steamer ship filled with racks of cots and equipment lockers. Their clothes were gone and they'd been replaced by tan uniforms and funky hats, with belts all over holding pouches and canteens. The compartment was filled with grizzled men wearing that same uniform, most of them in their thirties and forties, lots of them polishing guns. Even though they had too little education to know it, everything had a very 19th century look and feel to it, especially the gear and equipment.

"Aiyah! This being too, too strange day!"

The pair of tots looked around to find Shampoo sitting on the bunk beside them, dressed in the same uniform as they were, appearing confused. They met glances at the same time. "Airen!" The purple haired bundle of joy launched herself across the mattress to glomp onto her beloved. "How come you small again, like Shampoo?"

"It's the game, sugar. Remember, we showed it to your great grandmother? She read the rules right there in front of us. Once the game is done everything goes right back to the way it was when we started. It looks like since you had a piece in play with us you got brought back with Ranchan and I. This is eleven years ago to what happened this morning."

"So storm in village and bad men's attack was all game?" Shampoo blinked from where she was smothering Ranma against her washboard flat, little kid chest. "You and Airen start another? Why involve Shampoo?"

"We put your piece back on the board again, sure." Ukyo admitted, checking out the rest of the compartment so she didn't have to meet the amazon's gaze. "Sorry."

"Is no problem! Shampoo love to spend time with husband, get away from annoying Mousse. Who is having next turn?"

She asked the question and panicking, the other two youths began looking around, searching for a game board that was no longer there!

But all three jumped when an officer's swagger stick slammed down on the sheets of the bunk beside them.

The kids looked up to see an old, grizzled officer leering down on them. "New recruits! Cocky ones, from the look of it. Well, you won't be getting out of service that easily. Oh, no! Not until yer term of enlistment is over! Ye'll get yer game back only once we've finished up our little tour through Africa!"

The nasty seeming veteran turned on his heel and disappeared off into the crowd of men. The tiny tots gave one another a dismal look.

"All troops, fall in for inspec-SHUN!!" One of the sergeants roared above the noise of the crowd.

As six year olds, the trio stared at the comparatively ogre-sized men around them, some of them with knives and everyone with guns, as the troops began to ooze peer pressure to fall in line with the rest of them. There wasn't room to evade these guys in the tight quarters of the ship, and Ranma had bad memories of trying to struggle to resist adults when he'd last been stuck in a five-year old body - And it didn't work too well.

Swallowing hard, all three children looked at each other, and did.

And thus began their life in the legion.

Several times Ranma, often in schemes collaborated with his two fiancees, tried to get the game back, searching the camp high and low. For a time they felt the officer had locked it up with the brigade's pay chests, and the security guards were these big, mute Africans who constantly played with deadly knives and had a maniacal gleam to their eyes when they fought. The hulking brutes knew how to fight with those knives, too. Well enough that every time Ranma or his friends went to try and reclaim their game they not only got beaten and covered in cuts, but turned over to the sergeants for extra punishment duties.

Being six had not done wonders for the trio's fighting skills, their bodies were too weak compared to what they'd been used to, and by the time they'd grow the guards would be much wiser to their specific tricks.

Then Shampoo devised a drug to slip into the meals of the pay guards, and the trio searched those chests, dumping out every bit. But nowhere among them did they find that old wooden game board.

Stumped, having searched the whole ship by then, searched it thoroughly, and found not a hint of that game anywhere, they began to realize that maybe they did have to serve a tour of duty before this was over.

That thought pleased none of them, but they'd run out of ideas by then.

The steamship dropped off the Legion in a port in North Africa, disembarking troops and equipment and (to Ukyo's surprise) horses. The pretty little okanomiyaki seller had known more about modern combat than the other two, having watched some TV, and knew that it had been a long time since regular military units used horse mounted cavalry.

The other two hadn't known, but shrugged when she explained that.

During the disembarking the troops got conscripted to help offload their equipment, men stripped to the waist to avoid passing out from the combination of exertion and heat as the ship's holds disgorged cannon and pallet after pallet of ammunition on cranes while long lines of men shifted a copious quantity of boxes and bags.

Then, fully spent in their labors, the men were drawn up into their units and marched to the outskirts of town where they were to make camp. Guards were posted, and the legionnaires all fell into an exhausted slumber.

Seeing as how they were so young, the tiny tots got spared combat duty, but that left them everything else, and being the fetch and carry support for an entire brigade was more work than fighting.

During the off loading of the brigade's baggage (over half of which seemed to be comforts and other luxuries to make the officers' terms of military service more pleasant) the kids got drafter as water carriers, darting about bringing buckets of water and drinking ladles to the men (who'd often waste much of it by dunking the buckets over their heads to cool off, and necessitating more trips for the tots).

Carrying two or three buckets of water per arm and one balanced on his head while dashing about at high speed, Ranma probably did more work that day than any three of the grown men had. Once he got to using Hidden Weapons to carry water, he was practically a hose.

However, there were positives in being the runts who did everything. A day after they'd left port Ukyo let slip that they were all cooks, so they got to help out in the mess, and after a short period all three of them learned that style of cooking and in doing so proved their worth to graduate to the officer's mess, where they served for most of a week before it got dissolved as the unit reached their permanent assignment and set up in a town, which had fancy restaurants, and the commander simply gave his commissioned officers leave to patronize those on the Legion's expense, leaving no need for an officer's mess.

You couldn't sent officer quality cooks to prepare food for the common enlisted men, so the trio of tykes got assigned to the artillery section because the captain there needed a few good hands to help in mixing gunpowder. Ukyo proved to already be expert at this, and so taught her two friends in record time, and the three graduated to general explosives and demolitions work, as well as aiming and firing the portable field guns in practice, standing in for a group of artillerists that were perpetually drunk and unable to do so themselves. s

In a short time they became masters of loading and sighting cannon, often getting off two or three shots in the space of time it took other crews to get one, and they were just getting started at perfecting how to do this. Their energy and active little martial artist bodies just gave them so much physical speed the tasks flew by.

After a few months the proud artillery captain made the mistake of bragging to the brigade commander that his trio of six year olds were the best gunners, fastest reloaders, and most accurate marksmen in the artillery section, and the horrified commander had them instantly reassigned to non combat duty, in the support section. The officers mess was still closed, and the enlisted men's mess couldn't take them (as that might give the men thoughts above their station), so they wound up doing fetch and carry, hauling coal and pumping bellows for the brigade's blacksmiths who saw to it that all of the Legion's gear was functioning, fixing breaks in everything from wagon wheels, belt buckles and hinges to shoeing horses, making nails, repairing field equipment, casting cannon and building artillery carriages.

Being strong for their size and uncommonly alert, all three tiny martial artists were soon not just pumping bellows but holding metal, judging temperatures, and soon actively assisting with the work. In less than two month's time learning everything they could not just from those military blacksmiths but from visiting every smith in town, those three had become the best in the entire region, even rebuilding the brigade commander's car when it got stuck by a stray cannon ball during practice. Once they got done it even ran better than before.

By this time is was so plain as to be undeniable that both Shampoo and Ukyo had gotten Ranma's almost flat learning curve. There was nothing that you couldn't teach them, and the two girls kept Ranma interested in some academic stuff long enough to overcome that block Genma had been working into him, to care only about physical stuff.

They'd proved this initially by Shampoo teaching Ukyo enough Chinese so they shared all of their secrets (like when to break for meals, and how to hide things from Ranchan) in that language. This proved enough motivation to the boy that he was soon racing Ukyo for fluency, a competition that quickly switched over into French, then English, by the girls trying the same means of motivation, namely learning enough of the language to share secrets and try to keep things from their Ranchan, even progressing into more complex verbiage and challenging forms of language with technical terms and advanced grammar, trying to stay one step ahead of the martial arts genius who was always close behind them.

All this time the three were continually practicing in shared martial arts training. They actually got out of punishment duty one time when a lieutenant caught them doing Breaking Point training and felt that was worse than anything he could have punished them with, particularly for the minor infraction they'd been caught doing earlier that day.

As none of the three kids were all that respectful of officers, they got handed punishments fairly often. Ukyo, who was the most respectful, caught the least of it, while Ranma, who verged on actively disrespectful at all times, obviously caught the worst. But for the most part they just adapted whatever punishments they were given into training, as Ranma taught both girls the Anything Goes school of martial arts.

Which, even with an insane learning curve, was so complex a style using so many forms and adaptations, that it was going to take them some years to get it right. And they didn't have the luxury of revisiting all of Japan's and China's training grounds while they were still stuck in northern Africa.

So they kept building their own, passing more months as they all devised interesting new ways to challenge each other.

Being accomplished blacksmiths by now, they forged lots of knives to use as training aids. Sharp, pointy things poked out from virtually every crevice of their private training camps, as an incentive to help learn dodges and mid-air maneuvering.

A junior officer once tried to get his men to run one of those 'obstacle courses' that the trio of kids had constructed and ran regularly, and this attempt led to so many injuries among the troops that the officer reportedly fell off his horse, three times, on his head, and the training exercise had to be canceled for lack of his continued leadership.

That was just before they got word they'd be moving out shortly, to suppress an uprising out in the desert countries. So the unit reformed the officer's mess, dragging our trio away from their forge and self-constructed training grounds, putting them back into chef's whites.

So they took those training grounds with them, carrying their disassembled parts in their sleeves.

Then their deployment got put off by two months, the youngsters spent all of their regular duty time as cooks in the many French restaurants in town, picking up secrets, techniques, recipes and everything else until when the troops at last deployed they could out cook the best master chefs of the whole Foreign Legion, and most of France.

Well, that was suicide for their jobs as cooks. One does not out-perform so jealous a man as a French master chef and survive to have a career that outshines his. After a few side dishes got praise to shame the main meal, then desserts to shame it all, the kids got stuck for a few days pushing brooms and hauling firewood until the first regular soldiers started to get punishment duty in the kitchens and took over those chores.

Not having places to go to in the kitchens, forbidden from returning to artillery, no place for blacksmiths to set up shop while the brigade was on the move, the youngest legionnaires got reassigned as horse messengers because the man in charge of dispatches had heard they knew something of horses from shoeing them, and they were so small they were very light, and thus able to ride those mounts farther or carry more packages than a larger man mounted on the same steed could've.

So Ukyo, Ranma and Shampoo learned to ride, and became masters of that in record time.

As they started their march, the troops were complaining and grousing, as it was only three days to the next quarter moon, and, for the past year or so ever since they'd started this last game, there came a dreadful monsoon every month at the quarter moon.

It was no trouble finding water, the desert was almost soggy by that point, but no one wanted to go out marching with that kind of weather so close.

All of the now seven year old children from time to time considered just riding off to freedom and away from the legion, but the doubts about how to get home kept them nearby, as their last information was that when they'd completed their tour with the legion they'd be released, and leaving it behind meant they could never return to their ordinary lives and the people they knew in them. They agreed that wherever they were, it wasn't on their world during the time period they all hailed from. Shampoo thought they were probably all inside of the game in some way. Ukyo wasn't so sure, but had no better alternative to offer. So they stayed, and they learned more and more every day as it became something of a bet among the old soldiers that no one could show these kids anything and they not be experts at it in a week, or sometimes less.

Money changed hands first among the scouts and dispatch riders as they showed the trio how to ride well, then ride very well, then get their mounts to do tricks, then train horses and donkeys and even camels. Once they'd exhausted the betting possibilities of riding and spotting or counting enemies at a distance, fast charge over uncertain terrain, or the other bits of cavalry lore the riders could recall, the regular troops had heard of this ongoing wager and got in on it, showing those children what they had to offer.

The trio of Legion Brats got taught how to load and fire several types of pre-World War One rifle, some dating back to the American Revolution, and then use pistols and grenades. They were already excellent cannoneers, and became sharpshooting rapid loaders on the old equipment, which they could strip and reassemble, doing all of those tasks better than any man there. They learned what those men knew of sword, knife and bayonet, and when they did the big mutes guarding the paychests started to carry loaded pistols at all times. The trio even learned to make the guns from raw metal and wood, becoming gunsmiths as well as blacksmiths, and from there branching out to a limited extent in carpentry, fixing rifle stocks and wagon wheels, or other tasks they could perform in a brigade on the move.

As the brigade came near to the unsettled areas and combat began to occur, threatening both scouts and dispatch riders, they once again got reassigned, this time to the wagon train where they got pressured heavily to learn in a short while how to drive a team of oxen, or horses, dragging all sorts of carts or wagons, even the doctor's carriage and the artillery guns they were no longer allowed to fire.

Then they hit combat and soon there weren't enough hands to deal with all of the wounded. Their brigade was ambushed, cut off and pinned by natives who had some European support and a supply of rifles and other guns, as well as plenty of ammunition.

Ever since joining the legion (against their wills), the trio had been training and practicing their martial arts together in spare moments so they did not lose form or skills. So the three of them were able to use the Breaking Point to create some caves at the base of the cliffs around which they'd been trapped. Soldiers hauled the broken stone about to make walls and ramparts with firing positions, fortifying themselves against a massive, overwhelming force of armed natives, while the brigade HQ, supplies and surgery all got relocated to the security of those caves and the trio all got collared again, this time as nurses.

The doctor was a rough sort, and his knowledge outdated on most things, but he had nearly thirty years of experience in sewing wounds shut, stopping bleeding, and saving lives. On that narrow topic he could give stunningly informative lectures to most modern physicians, he didn't know a thing about modern drugs, but show him a wound and he could tell you how to sew it up, and once he found his trio of tiny nurses had begun anticipating him he did what most men in a crunch would do and began instructing them as he worked, knowing that his own two hands were far too few to handle all of the responsibility now resting on them as wounded began to pile up looking for aid. More and more tasks got relegated to the tiny legionnaires as they proved time after time they could handle them, and when the doctor sat down to rest himself and avoid having hands shaking from fatigue suturing cuts he saw his newest assistants were still going strong and began to supervise them from his chair, offering years worth of advice in tersely worded suggestions.

As the days of battle wore on during that siege the old doctor found himself doing less as his strength waned, and consequently supervising more, offering more instruction than he did stitches to aid the fallen soldiers.

Every type of injury came by and required every type of treatment, from knife wounds to bullet holes, shrapnel, scrapes, bruises and broken bones the trio had to treat it as the aged man of medicine suffered more and more fatigue in those grueling conditions and his other aids gradually wore down under the strain.

Ranma, Ukyo and Shampoo had the energy of youth and the impossible constitutions of martial artists to haul them through, and still they began flagging as food stores ran low and wounded piled high. Soon those injured but able to walk got rearmed and sent to the rough walls and battlements they had improvised days ago. Without those, and the caves, the brigade would already have fallen under the terrible onslaught of thousands of Arab slavers.

It was on the thirteenth day the brigade was overrun. Short on ammunition, morale, and all sorts of supplies, with every other man bearing a wound, the Arabs and their servants made their charge and broke past their defenses at last, leading to a slaughter as scimitar met bayonet in a gruesome work of death that lasted less than an hour.

Taking a day to celebrate and loot the bodies, the Arabs at last rode off once again into the harsh deserts. When they did, a rock face blew open and exposed the supply cave that Ranma, Shampoo, and Ukyo had been sleeping in, catching a few precious hours rest in between surgeries when the final attack had begun. Too tired to fight, once the outermost defenses had fallen and the inner ones broken, Shampoo had wisely chosen to collapse the mouth of their cave to keep the tide of invaders out.

Sleeping in that cave with them had been a few dozen soldiers, the brigade commander, and of course the big African brutes who's only job was to protect the pay chests. That, and a few officers and exhausted nurses, plus one ailing doctor who had fallen ill because of the burden of overwork, and the horses stabled in those caves were all that survived of the unit. Legionnaires had made stands in the other two caves, but without the ability to seal them they had been overrun by Arabs and slaughtered to the last man.

Hitching up the horses to all of their wagons, surprisingly intact, the youngest legionnaires loaded their battered group into vehicles and, hooking up those artillery pieces still intact so as to deny them to the natives if they ever chose to come back, they headed back to that coastal town where the African detachment of the Legion had their headquarters.

Thanks to some expert scouting, one or two minor ambushes defeated by now increasingly rested martial artists, and a few sniper shots taking down native scouts at long range, the pitiful remnants of their brigade managed to limp back to Legion headquarters with most of their baggage train and field guns, where the wounded brigade commander got a medal for getting his men out alive, and the young kids got sent back to the kitchens.

The remains of that brigade got dissolved soon after arrival, the survivors who were worth anything parceled out to other units. The doctor stayed at headquarters ill and in bed, and due to his request the youngsters were kept together to nurse him by his bedside, where he taught them all he could before dying.

Shampoo almost went out to kill their commander for having gotten into that mess that killed the kind but rough doctor and virtually his whole brigade, but the other two managed to, reluctantly, stop her, as that was the only guy who was able to get them out of the game.

After that the trio stayed on at Legion headquarters doing odd jobs and lurking about waiting for their old commander to make a mistake and reveal where the game might be hidden. That old colonel had been reassigned to a spot on the staff of the African detachment's commander, and his African guards still protected him and those chests with long knives and now several loaded guns.

Not being willing to fight through the heart of the Legion to search through their belongings, as bullets ringing out could bring everyone, the young kids discarded plans to use bombs or rifles to get at those chests again to search them once more for their game. The guards wouldn't trust them bringing meals, and they didn't want to risk one of them getting shot if they tried to fight their way through those burly Africans using their fists again.

That was when the brigade commander recalled that these young 'blacksmith's assistants' were still hanging around, and decided to attach them to a party of Germans who had come to that town to build a dye factory for an enterprising Frenchman. The Germans had brought blacksmiths of their own, but had requested a little local help as once on site the task had proven to be much larger than expected. Having recalled the repair work they'd done on his car, the general gave the Germans his youngest legionnaires as assistants, whereupon the kids learned a whole new level of blacksmithy, making machines and valves and tubing and so on for a massive chemical plant that was to be largely self sufficient.

They spent a year learning everything they could while assisting in the construction, and the chemists, who they had to work closely with, soon found themselves explaining all sorts of things not related to the job at hand to those eager young pupils. Almost against Ranma's wishes, the trio became qualified, then extraordinarily skilled, chemists from people who led that century in the field. Also, the German smiths were among the best of the world, and the intricate mechanical toys they taught the youngsters to make, over and above all that they had to learn for their job creating the factory, left them able to match or surpass most smiths - in a world that still relied upon blacksmithy for practically everything. Machines producing goods were still quite rare, and machines that built more machines almost unheard of.

Given nothing but a source of ore any one of that trio could then create tools, and from there go on to handcrafting virtually anything from clocks to cars to chemical factories if they had enough time - and since Ranma had passed on the Chestnut Fist to his two friends and adapted that speed to blacksmithy, they did not require much time to build things. They deliberately kept things slow so they could learn all they could from the Germans before having to go back to legion duties, which by now they all found quite boring.

But all good things must come to an end and soon enough the factory got completed, even though Ranma and his two girlfriends had dragged their feet in not using any of their fantastic speed to finish things. However, they did manage to arrange that on the day the Germans left they had an important anniversary.

"Colonel, our two years are up." Ranma, at the head of his friends, formed up before the man who had drafted them into the Legion. "Give us back our game and we'll go now."

The officer looked down his long, thin nose at the trio of youngest legionnaires, the most valuable troops in the brigade who had virtually nothing they couldn't do, and sneered. "Two years? Why, my pets, you all signed up for twenty! Do you honestly think I'd let you go when our country needs such as you? Suit up! The Legion is getting recalled to the Continent to help fight in the Crimean War, and you three are going to the front of it!" He leered at them nastily. "I've persuaded the General to consider you three as forward observers directing artillery. With your small size you ought to be able to slip beyond enemy lines better than anybody. Of course this is the most dangerous slot in the Legion. I'm sure you'll be decorated, after your demise."

Ranma had to spend a week in the stockade after breaking all of that man's teeth out and shoving them down his throat. It would have been longer, but they really were moving out, and it didn't really matter anyway as between his various martial arts powers they couldn't keep him anywhere he didn't want to be for long, and with invisibility and sympathy of the guards the officers didn't even really know if they had him locked up or not.

"Okay, girls, the kid gloves have come off. No way am I working another eighteen years under a sadist who wants to get us all killed." Ranma told his friends as the three of them watched the Legion board onto the ships leaving North Africa for the Crimean Peninsula.

"But what we do?" Shampoo asked.

"It's easy. Once we start to come ashore, one of us sneaks over to the boat carrying all the Legion's baggage and uses the Breaking Point to blow a hole in the bottom of it. It'll sink like a stone, and those guards can either stay with it and drown, or they won't and I'll be able to dive for the box." Ranma answered with a smirk.

"Why wait for our arrival?" Ukyo tossed her hair and asked, eyes shining brightly. "They've got most of that baggage loaded now, and I saw those pay chests go on with the guards. None of us want to go anywhere near a battlefield under this commander, so..." She tempted them to make their own conclusions.

Not many minutes later, harbor boats were swarming about a sunken cargo ship with a hole blown neatly into its belly, while a trio of eight year old riders wearing native desert costume were riding out of town by one of the less used roads, followed by a train of pack horses loaded down with an assortment of heavy pay chests they hadn't had time to open and look through.

Half an hour after that, with all of those heavy pay chests stuffed into their sleeves, those same kids in entirely different costumes were racing along a major highway in another direction, toward British properties in Egypt.

They had not gotten far before their distance from the Legion triggered the release effect - for, having been shanghaied in the first place, there was no actual obligation or contract and all they'd had to do from the start to get away from it was sneak off a fair distance from the Legion that had taken ahold of them. With a little distance and the intent of escaping from it, they'd be free.

Nothing had bound them to the Legion save for their proximity and willingness to obey it. Once that was gone, those kids got returned, two to a field in Japan, and one to a village in China, where they found that time had been passing in their absence.

OoOoO  
Author's Notes:

Well, that was more or less setup for future chapters. I can't say I didn't enjoy the ride, however, as I always approve of character growth.

But ask yourself this question: what would you do with that game if you were an uber-powerful martial artist?


End file.
